filmland / By Charlie Myers

Unhappy Families

In fact, although the film does show scenes of Sam’s imprisonment, this is not a film about war as much as it is a family story using the war as a catalyst for delving into matters of family loyalty and responsibility. Although he tries to suppress it, what Sam goes through during his capture renders him unable to deal with his domestic life, and the entire family becomes unstuck as a result.

The story of brotherly rivalry is an old one (Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau for example) and Brothers always seems on the verge of invoking these narrative archetypes, with the father’s character being a case in point. But for the most part, the actors manage to particularize their characters, particularly Portman, who brings nice subtle shadings to her role. The other standout acting comes from Taylor Geare as the younger daughter, Maggie. Geare’s interactions with the adults in the film are some of its finest and most real moments. Rated R for language and some disturbing violent content. 110 m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

EVERYBODY’S FINE: Based in a very general way on the 1990 Italian film Stanno tutti bene, which starred Marcello Mastroianni, Everybody’s Fine actually looks back much further in Italian film history, in terms of its sensibility, to the weepie Bicycle Thief. Unlike most weepies and films of that ilk that only gradually layer in the tear-inducing sentimentality, Everybody’s Fine hits you with the gooey stuff from the very beginning and never lets up.

I don’t particularly blame the actors here, although all have done much better work, but rather the script, which simply sets up one pathetic situation after the other with no depth to any of them.

The story centers on Frank Goode (Robert De Niro), a widower first seen puttering around his garden. When all of his children cancel out on their holiday visits, Frank, against the advice of his doctor, decides to surprise each with a visit via trains and buses.

In New York, his painter son David is not home. On to Chicago, he gets a brush-off from his daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale) and leaves after one night for Denver to see musician son Robert (Sam Rockwell), perhaps the film’s most effective sequence. Finally, he visits actor daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore) in Vegas. At each stop, he imagines the children when they were young, and it becomes apparent that all of his children have lied to him, being used to having their actual lives filtered through their mother.

The story wrings maximum pathos from each situation, and the viewers need only wait for the telegraphed crisis that will bring the family back together. To be fair, many viewers will enjoy this film more than this hard-hearted reviewer. So by all means, go and cry yourself a river while I dream of De Niro in his signature roles. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief strong language. 100m. At the Movies, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

ARMORED: Armored wasn’t screened in advance for reviewers, so I was expecting the worst. Instead, I got a very pleasant surprise. The film is a carefully constructed effective heist film featuring at least two major stars in Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne, along with the always-enjoyable French actor Jean Reno, so I am puzzled by the studio’s marketing strategy (or lack thereof).

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